Seriously, I do have my own thoughts and opinions. If my opinions agree with Tessarae's, then what can be derived from that? Well, since I'm male, maybe it goes beyond just a gender issue. Since I'm not a gamer, maybe it goes beyond games. I sure wouldn't invite someone back to my home if they practiced verbal abuse of the sort that I've read here.

hehe, Speed, just throwing a change-up to keep ya'll guessing. You were chiming your support for quite a bit of what Tesserae had to say, but the same could have been said of my giving props to Princess Die.

So here's the real question - did my calling you a cheerleader offend:
a) you as a male?
b) any cheerleaders reading this?
c) Tesserae? [I'm playing the odds, cuz I don't know if I've said anything yet that Tess didn't like... ]

- and did "a)" offend any male cheerleaders?
I'd better edit all this out just in case...

Wow, walk away from this thread for a couple of days and it starts sprouting pages like a field of weeds

Very interesting posts all around. One that I want to reply to from Derek Anderson:

Ah. I see that you've managed to avoid addressing my earlier point--I do see a difference between a person's 'normal' persona and their persona in a game. I suppose that Quake 3 was probably a bad example, but I'm more of a MUD/RPG player anyway; I guess my in-character/out-of-character behavioral distinction doesn't apply to 'modern' games, eh?

Would it be different if the opponents were all computer-controlled bots (but still spouted abuse)?

Yes! It is completely different if all the opponents are computer-controlled bots. I don't fear that their AI is yet advanced enough to feel bad about getting verbally abused

I think that coming from a MUD/RPG background will make your experience on this very different than what most people here are posting about. In a MUD, you will (as you say) insult someone's character. However, in LAN games or FPS' (and other games) there is no real "character" to attack. You ALWAYS address the player when you say something. Coming from a live-action roleplaying background, this is a very important distinction that I understand quite well That's why I support Tesserae's opinion (along with Speed, TwoFer, and others) -- because they're talking about the PLAYERS getting hit with this.

Okay, have been following this post for about three days, and it got seriously boring after about three pages... seriously boring! I just heard the same "insults are juvenile... no they're not, they're part of the game" over and over again!

First blood to all the people who say that insults are part of the game (within reason e.g. no saying "you fat pork eating nigger tranny," or anything that is REALLY strong)... If you don't want to be insulted ever again, develop Seasonal Adjustment Disorder and stay inside every day of the rest of your life, don't watch tv, don't read, don't sing, don't listen, and get a pipe and slippers in preparation for later life.

There's a very famous Adam Smith quote in economics about people acting in their own self-interest. While the context is different, the idea is the same. When the adrenaline is flowing through you and you're on a streak, what do you care if someone is a bit offended by your comment? You don't. Full stop.

Also, reading these posts I see that the people deciding that insults are juvenile say so in such a way as to be hypocritical...

Finally, though, we've got past all the jock-behaviour, crotch-scratching, spitting, and insults of you pseudo-macho typers, and the argument is starting to get settled into case - counter-case...

My view is that confidence is fine, the occasional insult is brilliant for the spirit of the match, as long as it accompanied by the appropriate congrats or whatever when that person is beaten. In fact the fastest way to get me off a Q2 server is to be arrogant. It really just doesn't give people a chance to concentrate, and that can't be good for the game at hand.

But we're still A MILLION MILES AWAY from the thread at hand.

Anyone remember the original question? That's right, how many females are there here...

My own personal opinion is that there will be a higher proportion of female regulars compared to an all-out games site, simply because of the nature of the reviews etc. But at the same time I haven't seen a post saying "Where are all the males!?!?!?!"

My suggestion: stick it as next week's poll, and put this particular thread off-limits or something, it's kinda starting to damage the back porch community IMO...

Sos for the long post, and apologies in advance if anyone is offended ,
IntelMole

It's been said that games imitate life. I don't know what the current philosophy is, but when I went to school, the consensus was that game play among children and youth was more or less a rehearsal for real life. I think there's a lot of truth in that.

So is a "game persona" any different from the person who created it? I don't think so. In fact, I would say that if we were to decide which persona reflected the true person, and which was a "false face", that we might find the personae that come out during the lowered inhibitions of the relative anonynimity and suspended reality of game play is more representative of the person's true character. People do all kinds of things in public to influence others.

My research and experience is primarily with how people behave on the road, in the relative anonymity and (often false) feeling security of an automobile. I see a lot of people who have worked hard to cultivate the image of being a "nice person" get into their SUVs and then commit felonies.

Of course, on the road there's no convenient excuse like "it's only a game", although I have heard some pretty callous excuses for vehicular homicide. The thing that strikes me is how the aggressor tends to blame his victim -- a method that appears to work in game play identically to how it works in real life crime. I can't help but wonder why that is.

The thing that strikes me is how the aggressor tends to blame his victim -- a method that appears to work in game play identically to how it works in real life crime. I can't help but wonder why that is.

Because:
- we are cheap and it would be better for our insurance if it was never our fault?

"Princess Die" is the handle I most often use during LAN gaming. I wonder if that offends anybody I game with?

Speed:

Aha! Now I see where you are coming from. OK. I have to say that I think you are making too much of a stretch to draw the parallel between your experience and the subject at hand. I think its a <I>bit</I> overdone to compare commiting vehicular manslaughter to ( at worst ) being verbally insulting. I know you mentioned that the similarity was the "perpetrators blaming the victims", but I'm not sure anyone here has made that case. In any case, I think the word "victim" as used to describe the recipient of a verbal taunt is too emotionally charged, i.e.: too strong. This is true especially when the recipient may not have a problem with the taunt.

Yes, somewhere left out in this whole discussion had been the case concerning groups of individuals who have consented to include such behavior in the "acceptable" category. The again, at least one person here has made the case that such people could only be emotional freaks: calloused to the point of being unhuman or unfeeling.

That is patently ridiculous of course, but last time I checked melodrama wasn't considered unacceptable behavior.

Princess Die, obviously I'm not equating aggressive language in game-play to deadly assualt, but there is a connection. I see it all the time -- a momentum of compliance to behavioral wrongdoing. Road ragers don't suddenly decide to go out and become felons one day -- they start small.

It might start with something as innocuous illegal parking, but left unchecked the parking scofflaw graduates to running stop signs, then red lights and then goes on to illegal lane changes, and eventually stops bothering to yield right-of-way at all. Each step along the way is a small one, so the driver feels it's no big deal, even as the offense grows in seriousness. Before long all respect for the law is lost and the driver starts making up his own rules, rules that only he knows, and that only benefit him (or her).

By this time the road rager in training has totally forgotten that roads are public property, and starts acting as if the roads are his private property, to do with what he or she pleases. So when unhappy, the road rager that would have kicked the dog or beaten the wife now has a new target: everybody else on the road. And the bonus is that in an automobile, being armed and armored, the rager often feels invincible.

When you step away from it and look at it for what it is, it's insane and inexcusible. But to the road rager it's every day life -- how dare anybody tell him how to live his life?!?

From what I've read, the same momentum of compliance could very well be turning abusive gamers into abusive people in the real world. Some have linked FPS games to things like school shootings. My POV is that waiting for real body counts is not right. The Right Thing to do IMHO is to take a stand on principle, and to apply it to even on the smallest matters. This to prevent slights from snowballing into crimes or worse.

But like I have said, I'm not a gamer. I am trying to understand more than anything else.

yeah, speed, i'm with dolmite on this one. you apparently have commute issues that you need to deal with. take a deep breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth...

although, i also happen to disagree with your theory about road rage. my impression was pretty much that road rage WAS all about going nuts very quickly. that's what was so concerning to people about it. the frustrations of driving would cause people to suddenly snap. while incremental violation of traffic laws may be a concern, i believe it is a seperate concern.

princess die, i apologize. i've been calling you a "her" throughout the whole thread.

Well it's too bad that you guys see the differences but not the similarities. But please don't insinuate that's my fault. If you don't see it, you can always ask. Aggression is aggression, no matter where it happens. So calling a spade a spade is hardly going off on a tangent.

technophile, I don't know where you live, but here in Chicago, road rage is the norm 24x7. Most of the vehicles on the road are specially equipped for raging (SUV, push bars, assault lights etc.), leaving no doubt that it's a premeditated crime. It's not frustrated people in a traffic jam anymore, it's people actively looking for trouble. If it hasn't spread to where you live, consider yourself lucky.

As someone that lived in Atlanta for 5 years (just moved a few months ago), I can assure you that tanker has no clue what he's talking about. The ATL has bad traffic, but you have to be a fool to be unaware of the trouble spots which are, for the most part, easily avoided. Don't get on 285 at 6:00. Duh. The biggest problem in Atlanta is that drivers are so blessed nice, they'll cause a wreck trying to let you merge. Morons.

Now I live in Jacksonville. This charming metropolis leads the nation in highway shooting deaths. The city was even mocked by Saturday night and David Letterman following the last round of "incidents". Considering that it is inhabited almost entirely by gun toting rednecks, this should come as no surprise. Most of the monster trucks around here could just as soon driver OVER my little VW than hit it! Oh, there's a bonus! To get anywhere, you have to go over a bridge or two and the bridges are ALWAYS backed up. It's a traffic nightmare that never ends and the ignorant locals fret about the traffic getting bad "like Atlanta". Puh-lease! The only hope for Jacksonville lays with a tactical nuclear strike or maybe an asteroid collision.

Considering that it is inhabited almost entirely by gun toting rednecks, this should come as no surprise. Most of the monster trucks around here could just as soon driver OVER my little VW than hit it!

[q]1 Challenge for acceptable terms
1 Exception to the rule offered
3 Denials that the words mean anything
1 Change of subject
1 "Everybody's doing it"
0 What can I do to help?

That's before I put my 2 cents in, BTW. Make of it what you will. I'm simply curious if the individuals who took their respective stands would say that it's consistent with how they want to live their lives. [/q]

Here's a "Bite Me" you can add to your little list. Please, explain to me again why we (little boys) need to be PC? I'm tired of being PC. If, all day long, I work in an environment where I must be PC, and I want to blow off some steam, you think that it's a bad idea to do it by fragging some buddies and rubbing their face in it? AND? Most games that are played at a LAN are aggressive by nature. So, in the same spirit, taunts and insults fall right in line with that. Why should I need to conform to someone else's standards, because they *might* get offended? In the few times I've been at a LAN where WOMEN (not chicks, girls, gals, birds, dames, honies, skanks, ho's or broads) were present, they were right there in the thick of it. If they were offended, they either kept it to themselves or they left. The ones that left certainly weren't followed out to the parking lot and assaulted with even more profanity. We don't do it to insult you. We're probably not even aware you're there. If you're taking it so personally, that's your problem, and you *may* want to think about not hanging out with people who offend you. In fact, if you're so keen on everyone bending over backwards to make sure other people are all comfortable, shouldn't you NOT be in an environment where the opportunity exists for you to say something to someone about how profane they are, thereby insulting THEM? What about THEIR feelings? Who are YOU to tell them they can't cuss at each other? What gives YOU the right to judge them when they weren't even TALKING to YOU?

When this thread was started, all Ali asked was whether or not any women frequented this site. I SERIOUSLY doubt he figured that women would respond, much less in such an offensive fashion. Tess, YOU insulted US. I'm totally offended. But I'm sure you don't care, because I happen to be a male.

On 2002-03-27 14:46, Speed wrote:Pity poor St. Babu, voted most likely to bitch and moan about how terribly unfair it is that those PC meanies are spoiling his hunting trip to the clock tower... *sniff*

OK, this is gonna rambe a bit.
<rant>
Speed, you need to chill out. I have no intentiond of climbing a clock tower. I look for non-fatal ways to work out my aggressions. Whether it be taunting by buds while fragging them at a LAN party; sparring (judo & ken-jitsu); pounding on a heavy bag; or just going for a muscle-burning, lung-tearing run 10Km run after work. Its these things that make me less violent in my day-to-day life. FYI, I don't drive aggressively, defensively in fact. I slow down to allow people to merge in front of me, I don't tailgate, I don't even speed.
Since you're we're resorting to personal attacks, isn't Speed a bit of an odd name for someone that is obsessed with agressive driving?
The simple fact is, if I don't want to be PC in the privacy of my own home, its none of your buisiness. If the people I invited over have a problem with it, they are free to voice their concerns, or leave. Neither has happened, so it doesn't seem to offend them either. If someone at my home stated that it did offend them, I would add "no vile-sounding smack-talk" to my list of ground rules, right alongside the "no smoking" and "no drinking" and "absolutely no #@$%@#%-ing drugs" rules that apply at LAN parties that I host. But until someone in my home states that this behavior is offensive to them, to my face, I will continue to be as profane as I desire in my house, as will my guests.
</rant>

lenzenm, my handle is a reference to the 70s cult movie "Mother Jugs and Speed", starring Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel respectively. The Speed character is police officer who was suspended after being framed for selling cocaine, and goes to work for an ambulance company until he's vindicated (he was vindicated).

That character stuck with me bacause he had a number of qualities that I identified with, including honor, honesty, service and an appreciation of beautiful women. (The quote "they don't call me speed for nothing" refers to Speed's success at bedding the Jugs character, where others had tried and failed.)

Another thing to note is how the name "Speed" was a misnomer in the movie too, another reminder of how wrong people can be when they're self-seeking.

Speed:
Just an example on my part of how an arrogant an ill-informed response could be. I had no idea as to the true origin of your nickname (I considered CPU speed as the first likely possibility, actually) but targeted it anyway. Much in the snide way you impy that I and others of my ilk are future road-ragers or psychotic killers; you know nothing of me, and thus are ill-informed to make such pronouncements.
I did notice that you couldn't be bothered to respond to how am I do not fit the stereotype you attempt to portray. If you wanted to come to my house and game, and made your objections known, it could be as profanity-free as you desire. In fact, I usually warn first-timers to LAN parties at my residence of the raccous nature they are likely to encounter. The typical response: "Cool, I will 0wn j00 bizaatch."
And then we game, and we see who 0wnz who. That's what it's al about after all, friendly competetion that allows us to blow off steam built up over the work week, where it is inappropriate to act in such a manner.

lenzenm, I'm not insinuating or stereotyping anything, nor am I pointing any fingers. If you're saying the shoe fits, then you only have yourself to blame.

I keep seeing this "you can't tell me what to do" bluster. I can only speak for myself, and I can say that I am certainly not telling people what to do! I've stated it several times -- I'm asking people to examine their own actions, and make up their own minds. The only conclusion that I can draw from the angry, blaming responses that I have gotten is that some of you don't like what you see in yourselves, but aren't willing to face the fact that it is <i>yours</i> to own.

The only conclusion that I can draw from the angry, blaming responses that I have gotten is that some of you don't like what you see in yourselves, but aren't willing to face the fact that it is yours to own.

Then you sir, are an enigma to me.

That's the only conclusion you came up with? You are saying, deep down inside, us poor little bastards are unhappy with who we are, so we lash out at people who point out our shortcomings.

Spare me the psychological theory. You just don't get it, do you? To us, it isn't a shortcoming. It doesn't bother us one way or the other. As lenzemn mentioned, we understand that others may be offended by our behavior. Fine, be offended all you want. It's your right as an American. Organize a big Anti-Profanity and Derogatory Remarks coalition and have a million man march. We don't give a ****.

But don't you dare tell us we're wrong. Because that's your erroneous opinion.

On 2002-03-27 14:46, Speed wrote:Pity poor St. Babu, voted most likely to bitch and moan about how terribly unfair it is that those PC meanies are spoiling his hunting trip to the clock tower... *sniff*

Snide. Not an insinuation? Not an insult? It drips of sarcasm and holier-than-thouism. At the very least its a crude case of potentially offensive name-calling, which is the very crime of which I been accused. If you wanna call me a terrible human being, do it. I can take it. Don't be half-@ssed about it, then issue a half-@ssed retraction afterwards. Beleive it or not, I'm pretty happy with who I am. But when you call someone to task, dont resort to the same tactics that the accused is supposedly guilty of. That would make you no better than the accused. Or, to be more blunt, no better than me. But since I'm happy with who I am, I guess you should be happy with who you are, if we're so alike. Or does the fact that we may indeed be alike offend you?

speed, you're latching on to some very weak arguments. some decent ones, but some very weak:
- people in SUV's = evidence of premeditated road rage? i don't think i even need to how that's not a valid claim.
- people are getting angry b/c they see, deep with themselves, something they don't like? oh come on. that's BS and you know it's BS. the only reason you made that statement is because if someone responds to it, you can just say their response is them being angry (again b/c of deep psychological problems).

how about if i say this:
"Speed is just too argumentative. He'll argue about anything, no matter how true it is. In fact, I bet he'll argue against this statement, just because he's so darn argumentative."

I don't know why it is inconceivable to you that people are getting upset because a) you're accusing them of being bad, insensitive people who intentionally harm others or b) they actually don't like your argument and its implications. Those are valid reasons that don't require psycho-babble explanations.